Don’t toast your health with soft drinks

While most of us would agree that soft drinks have little or no nutritional value, thinking they may actually lead to future illness has not been on the radar for most.Photo by
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Are you harming your family’s health by dropping that big bottle of a soft drink into your shopping cart?

While most of us would agree that these drinks have little or no nutritional value, thinking they may actually lead to future illness has not been on the radar for most. This week’s edition of Health-Watch looks at new research that examines just how much of a health hazard these sugar-sweetened beverages can be.

Tell me about Type 2 diabetes

Type 2, or adult onset diabetes, is a chronic condition in which one’s body cannot properly use insulin, which normally converts sugar into energy stores. Our heart and blood vessels don’t like the high sugar levels and other metabolic abnormalities associated with diabetes, as it predisposes us to strokes and heart attacks leading to disability as well as premature death. Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest-growing diseases in Canada, with more than 60,000 new cases diagnosed annually.

How might sugar load trigger diabetes?

It is thought that the high sugar content of certain foods -- soft drinks, for instance -- may increase the risk of diabetes through the creation of a heavy glycemic load (GL). The GL describes how certain foods raise blood sugar levels after eating or drinking. With a high GL, excess calories are converted to fat, which leads to weight gain and obesity.

Similarly, soft drinks and fruit juice, which can contain as much as 10 teaspoons of sugar in a 12-ounce serving, do not satisfy hunger and do not limit the amount of food your brain tells you to consume -- the same brain that may be addicted to the caffeine and sugar rush one of these drinks provides.

How big a problem is obesity?

Being overweight (a body mass index of 25 or more) or obese (a body mass index of 30 or more) is a significant and increasing public health challenge in most regions of the developing and developed world. The past few decades have been witness to an unprecedented rise in the prevalence of obesity as a result of increased access to affordable and plentiful -- though not particularly nutritious -- food.

Particularly disturbing is the fact that obesity is occurring at younger and younger ages, affecting our children and adolescents in epic proportions. Currently, 59 per cent of adult Canadians are either overweight or obese. What’s more, obesity rates in children have almost tripled in the past 25 years. About 26 per cent of Canadian children age 2 to 17 are currently overweight or obese.

How costly is obesity?

The health and economic repercussions of obesity are far reaching. Excess body weight is the sixth most important risk factor contributing to the overall global burden of disease. In Canada, the economic costs associated with obesity are staggering. In 2005, the total cost of obesity was estimated to be $4.3 billion.

From a health standpoint, affected adults may die up to three to seven years earlier than their healthy counterparts as a result of heart disease, cancer and strokes. In addition, obesity is difficult to reverse and childhood obesity tends to lead to obesity in adulthood.

Scientists and non-scientists alike have observed that high level consumption of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages is often noted in people who are either obese or who develop type 2 diabetes, or who suffer from both.

To determine if this was simply an anecdotal connection or something that could lead to a measurable increase in risk, these researchers decided to analyze all of the studies that examined the chances of contracting type 2 diabetes as a result of the regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

What did the study show?

The authors found and combined eight studies that enrolled a total of more than 310,000 subjects, over 15,000 of whom developed diabetes, thus allowing a comparison of soft-drink consumption in new diabetics and people who did not develop the disease.

The key finding was that drinking an average of a single sugar-sweetened beverage on a daily basis increased the risk of becoming diabetic by 25 per cent.

How solid is this evidence?

The studies that were combined by these researchers were not the kind that can prove cause and effect like an experiment in which some subjects drink high sugar sodas while others drink water and then are followed to see whether or not they develop diabetes.

Instead, all that can be said with certainty is that an association exists between these dietary habits and illness.

Despite this, the authors did observe a higher risk with greater levels of consumption, something that argues for a real connection. These studies looked at other factors known to increase the risk of developing diabetes, such as age and a lack of physical activity; and did their best to ensure that the influence from these was accounted for, thus strengthening their conclusions.

What should we do about soft-drink consumption?

Although satisfying, tasty and even thirst-quenching, sugar-sweetened beverages don’t provide much that contributes favourably to your health so reducing your intake can only be a good thing.

In fact, it is this realization that has led to shifts in what students can drink at school, and at the government policy level where some are trying to lump these products with other harmful consumer goods such as cigarettes.

Breaking the habit of drink consumption will not be easy for many, but switching to water and other low sugar options seems like the healthy choice to make.

- The material provided in HealthWatch is designed for general educational purposes only and does not pertain to individual cases. It should not replace necessary medical consultations with your own doctor or medical professional.

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